The present invention relates to a method for character correction and, more particularly, to a method for lightweight Chinese character correction with pinyin input.
It is often difficult to make corrections to a document when typing Chinese characters. Currently, users are permitted to make corrections and modifications only if they have not yet hit the enter key after typing a consecutive number of pinyin letters. For purposes of this disclosure, pinyin refers to a system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet and is used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and as an input method to enter Chinese characters into computers.
When inputting Chinese phrases, prior to sending Chinese characters/sentences to an editor program (by hitting the enter key, or hitting the white space key, etc), users can modify input content and make selections to correct text. However, once users hit the enter key, the pinyin letters are converted into corresponding Chinese characters and, at this point, the Chinese characters are saved and editors generally prohibit users to make further modifications. If a mistake has been made, however, existing correction methods require users to delete the wrong text inside the editor and re-input them from the scratch using the input method. This requires repeated operations until the user arrives at the right text. Thus, for users who get used to typing long pinyin phrases or sentences before sending Chinese characters/sentences to the editor (by hitting the enter key, or hitting the white space key, etc), the impact of typographical mistakes (typos) can be significant since even one typo of pinyin lettering can negatively affect the Chinese character translation after the users hit the enter key.
Another problem using the current pinyin input methods is that multiple possible Chinese characters can be mapped to the same pinyin letters. This is due to the fact that the same pinyin letters can generate four possible tones or sounds and each tone can map to different Chinese characters that ultimately have different meanings. A typo on the pinyin characters or correct pinyin characters but with a wrong selection of tone will generate a wrong Chinese character as a result.